The sixth
disc in the SFX Champion box set, which focuses solely
on Michio Yamamoto's Bloodthirsty trilogy that was conducted
by Riichiro Manabe. This CD contains the complete scores
to the first two entries in the series and roughly half
the score of the third, which spills over into the seventh
disc. The first film featured is the 1970 Vampire
Doll, which is also the shortest of the scores at
only 23 minutes. Sadly, the music for this movie is fairly
forgettable, as it tended to sift into the background
during the feature and director Yamamoto relied on a lot
of silence to heighten the mood. Looking at the cue numbers,
it would appear that there was an unused theme still left
for this film, although it's not present as the only extra
is the haunting "sound effect" of the wailing
voice. Thankfully, the second score, which is nearly twice
as long as the first, fairs much better, and I would go
as far to say as it was a career high for composer Manabe.
The main title in particular is nice, as are the three
themes leading up to it. Surprisingly, the score in general
works fairly well as a stand alone experience, as Manabe
just seemed to hit his marks for this one, which is even
more shocking given that it appears that very few alternate
takes were done. Granted, like any Manabe score there
are some duds, like "Natsuko's Revival" which
has that familiar "frog croaking" type of sound,
but in general it's surprisingly solid given his other
work. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of his
Evil of Dracula score, which rounds out the disc.
To Manabe's credit, his work for this film tends to start
off strong for the first couple of cues, but beyond this
there isn't much to tout, although the worst of the score
is to be found on the next disc with the remainder of
the cues.